We are joined by Greg Wrenn, author of Mothership: A memoir of wonder and crisis. He talks to us about his experience with Ayahuasca as a treatment options for complex trauma.
Join us as we dive into a profound conversation with Greg Wrenn, author of Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis. 🌟 Greg opens up about his journey of healing complex trauma through the transformative power of ayahuasca. 🌿✨ Discover the depths of his story and the insights he's gained along the way.
Key Takeaways:
Episode Links:
Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder & Crisis
Greg Wrenn: @gregjwrenn (IG) / Twitter: @GregWrenn
Dr. Kelley (02:17.322)
Your new book, Mothership, a Memoir of Wonder and Crisis is out. And in it, you explore evidence-based practices of using psychedelic plants and endangered coral reefs to heal from complex PTSD. Can you unpack what in your personal research compelled you to use this route for your healing?
Greg Wrenn (02:38.915)
Hmm. That's a great question. Well, it before I went to the Amazon to work with ayahuasca, I actually had seen no research about complex PTSD and psychedelics. I had not seen that they're had they're actually looking back. There were articles a few articles out there about
about that, but I had only seen research about kind of classic PTSD. And just for you, just so your listeners know the difference between classic and complex PTSD. So, so sort of more classic PTSD is the traumatized veteran who hears the gunshot in the distance in the woods and starts to have a panic attack, um, because of their traumatic experiences on the battlefield.
Dr. Kelley (03:12.51)
Yes, please. I love it.
Dr. Jeanne (03:14.895)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (03:34.179)
So their trigger would be loud noises, anything that reminds them of the battlefield. For someone with complex PTSD, the trigger is bonding with someone else. The trigger is, is being in relationship with someone else because that reminds you of the battlefield of your childhood. That reminds you of your greatest.
Dr. Kelley (03:59.869)
and
Greg Wrenn (04:04.179)
enemy, so to speak, on the battlefield, who was your caregiver, who was abusing you, and you could not escape. So with classic PTSD, the violence or the abuse is not interpersonal, generally speaking, and it happens once or twice or several times, whereas with complex PTSD, it is interpersonal in nature.
Dr. Kelley (04:12.803)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (04:33.571)
you are held captive in a sense by that person, oftentimes just by dint of being a child. And yes, so when you do become vulnerable with another person and you're in relationship with that person, that brings up, that's the trigger, that's what causes the panic to come up. So I had only seen research about classic PTSD and ayahuasca.
And, you know, the anecdotal evidence from veterans has been, has been mounting for really for decades now for several decades. And then of course, there has been more and more research into PTSD and psychedelics. So when I looked into this, I thought, well, if it's, I see that it's working for, for classic PTSD, that psychedelics and ayahuasca in particular are working for classic, for excuse me, for classic PTSD.
Dr. Jeanne (05:10.535)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (05:32.431)
So I thought...
why not try it for CPTSD? And I should say too that, just so your listeners understand, when I arrived in the Amazon, I was a psychiatric, I considered myself to be a psychiatric patient. That's not what I told the people there. I told the people there that I was struggling, but I was a psychiatric patient who was struggling with suicidal behavior. And so it was sort of for me either,
Dr. Jeanne (05:37.978)
Why not try it?
Dr. Kelley (05:39.126)
Hehehehehehe
Dr. Kelley (05:53.58)
Hmmm
Dr. Kelley (05:57.624)
Okay.
Dr. Kelley (06:03.992)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (06:07.619)
go to the Amazon and work with this medicine or, you know, or don't. And I can go into kind of the science behind how CP, you know, now looking back on my experiences there, why ayahuasca was such an incredible medicine for complex trauma. And I can go into the science behind that. But that, just to answer your question, it was more of a hypothesis. It was more of a hunch.
that it would, that ayahuasca would work for, for complex PTSD. I didn't have, there was no Google, I didn't see any Google scholar articles on this.
Dr. Kelley (06:46.314)
Right. I love how you described, I've heard, you know, some of the key words about complex trauma being over a period of time, often in our past, the interpersonal piece, which is tricky because when overcoming trauma, one of the most important things that we can do is to be in community and to be reminded that the world can be safe despite the fact that you've experienced trauma.
Greg Wrenn (06:56.367)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (07:12.818)
And when what you've experienced as interpersonal, the very anecdote is the very trigger as you're so eloquently saying when you said the battlefield are the relationships, I love that. When it comes to the single incident, you were giving the example of veterans and other catastrophes and assaults and things like that.
Dr. Jeanne (07:19.506)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (07:32.567)
Yes.
Dr. Kelley (07:33.911)
I find that it's outside the norm. It's something that is a trigger that isn't within these interpersonal interactions as much, if I'm understanding you correctly. Right.
Greg Wrenn (07:44.087)
Right. And so the person who assaults you in the classic PTSD model is not one of your parents. It's not a relative. It's not someone who kind of is responsible for you at a young age. Although that gets tricky too because something like that could happen once in a family of origin.
Dr. Kelley (08:00.184)
Right.
Greg Wrenn (08:11.351)
but you also can't leave that person. So yes, it's generally a caregiver and it's interpersonal and it's repeated, it's prolonged. And so you learn very quickly that people are scary. And so, and I think your listeners should also understand because as I've gone on book tour, I often sound anti-therapy and anti-therapist and I'm not. It's just that for me as a complex trauma survivor,
Dr. Kelley (08:16.939)
Right.
Dr. Kelley (08:27.01)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (08:27.334)
Hmm
Greg Wrenn (08:41.635)
Um, you know, talk therapy was very triggering because yeah, I was asked, I was sort of asked to get, to get close to the therapist and have that kind of corrective experience that they were wanting to give me to kind of remother me in a sense. Um, and that, um, that felt even under the best of circumstances that felt invasive and scary often and invasive and scary in a way that made me want to bolt.
Dr. Kelley (08:45.279)
It can be.
Dr. Kelley (09:07.402)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (09:11.307)
and that I really couldn't talk about. And as we think about veterans even who have classic PTSD, it is so hard to treat that because you are asking someone to re-experience their trauma in the present moment with another person. And even if that trauma wasn't interpersonal, it sometimes just can be so overwhelming that you don't wanna do it and so you leave. And that's why these sort of traditional methods for kind of exposure therapy, for even classic PTSD, they often fail.
Dr. Kelley (09:23.304)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (09:32.267)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (09:41.366)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (09:42.059)
And so, I'm saying, so talk therapy didn't work for me. And neither did big pharma drugs, like Zoloft. And so, over time, as I reached middle age, I was running out of options.
Dr. Kelley (09:56.93)
Hmm
Dr. Jeanne (09:58.242)
I can get that because that's a lot of what we were talking about with Dr. Peter Levine as well. I think Camila can help me if I'm saying something wrong, but that's the whole somatic experience as well, right? He was saying that it's not about tackling the trauma head on. It's not about constantly going back to that moment and reliving it. And that has been one of my biggest challenges as well.
When I had spoken to my psychiatrist a couple of months ago, this is what I had said to him. I said, I want to take a break from therapy because I can't do this anymore. I can't go back anymore. I want to move forward. I can't keep reliving this thing. I need to figure out how do I go from where I am now into the future? And kind of say, it sounds like that's what you're saying and sort of fits into what Dr. Levine was saying as well.
And I think that's also your approach to trauma therapy. I mean, if I understand that correctly.
Dr. Kelley (10:55.762)
Yes, that's actually why I was thrilled to talk with you, Greg, because as a trauma therapist, I do not come to the table with just one bag open and say, this is how we're going to do it. I really try to meet the client where they're at. So if that means they want to go straight to the trauma, that's up to them. But I lean heavily into just the felt sense of the trauma, the essence of it. And sometimes it's just like you were saying.
having a corrective relationship can be big. But even then, I will have clients that I've worked with for years who just seem stuck. I have one particular veteran that I worked with. I have never seen such change in someone and what finally clicked it was when we stopped looking at the trauma he experienced and we started looking at the damage that had been done to his brain.
and we got him into neurofeedback and some TMS. And so I think having a therapist who's willing to be humble and someone who's willing to say, I don't know, let's try something different, or maybe this isn't the right route for you. And I am not, as a therapist who works with trauma, I am not against recommending ayahuasca or any of these journeys or voyages. There's...
Contacts that I have connected some of my clients with and they have gone to explore this route So I would love if you could unpack Precisely what ayahuasca is how it works Because you were saying you could break down some of the science. I'm very interested to know Does it work differently does it work differently in the brain of a PTSD versus CPTSD? There's like so many things I want to know now
Greg Wrenn (12:44.735)
Mm hmm. Sure. Well, I do want to circle back for just a second and just say that approach of, you know, redirecting your veteran client away from sort of the incident, the traumatic incident, and more into kind of the brain itself. That actually is what helped me was to get really
left brained, so to speak, like nerdy, right, about it. And to look on Google scholar and say, Okay, well, what's really going on in my brain? And what is the hippocampus? What is the amygdala? What is the limbic system? You know, and so that really helped me approach the situation more rationally and connect me with care, you could say it was care in the Amazon. Because I think that
Dr. Kelley (13:15.219)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Dr. Kelley (13:22.027)
Yes.
Greg Wrenn (13:40.895)
It can sound kind of woo or out there. And so for your, you know, for your listeners, you know, ayahuasca is essentially a tea. It's a, it's a psychedelic rainforest tea, and it's a combination of a vine, which is confusingly also called ayahuasca and the leaves of a plant that's related to coffee called chacruna. And those, those plants are brewed together and
Dr. Jeanne (14:02.606)
Hmm.
Dr. Kelley (14:03.926)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (14:09.579)
and this kind of tea or this brew is created. And then in a usually at night, you'll gather in a in a in a hut, a large space, not a small hut, but a large hut in the rainforest. And you will ingest this medicine in you know, under the under the care of shamans who are there and also facilitators.
And so what happens when we ingest ayahuasca, specifically trauma survivors, what happens? Well, for one thing, the default mode network, kind of nerdy, the default mode network, which maybe your listeners don't know, is it's basically your sense of self. It's the shitty committee that can't stop, that can't stop thinking.
Dr. Kelley (14:53.894)
I love the death.
Dr. Jeanne (15:03.89)
Hahaha
Dr. Kelley (15:04.628)
Hehe
Greg Wrenn (15:07.987)
about how miserable things are, how miserable we are. That just keeps going, right? And it plays an important role, right? It's kind of the chief executive, if you will, of our brain. But for trauma survivors, the DMN, the default mode network, is overactive. And so ayahuasca quiets that down, quiets that down. And it's also a rapid antidepressant.
So Zoloft, if it ever kicks in, can take six to eight weeks to kick in fully. Ayahuasca kicks in after 24 hours. It increases your mindfulness. It increases your divergent thinking. You're able to think more creatively about your affliction, your trauma. Because I think maybe in your experience, you've seen this in your clients. They get stuck.
in a way of talking about their trauma and talking even about themselves. And so it's, to use Michael Pollan's phrase, it kind of is a control, alt, delete for your brain. And so you're able to revise during the journey and afterwards, you're able to revise, excuse me, revise these rigid stories that we keep telling ourselves that keep us miserable. But...
Dr. Kelley (16:15.298)
Heh. Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (16:32.687)
For trauma survivors, the most important thing that ayahuasca does is it essentially...
Greg Wrenn (16:43.927)
The medicine creates a space in which the exposure therapy, and I'll speak for myself, the exposure therapy that I had always dreamed of finally came to fruition. What I mean by that is the panic of the past, the traumatic memories from the past, some of which I wasn't even aware of, they come up. So ayahuasca is what we call an anti-amnesic.
It's a medicine that allows us to remember and not turn away from those traumatic memories. And so we get to have the quite unpleasant experience of re-experiencing this panic that we've been self-medicating all of our lives. And those traumatic memories surface, as we know when we remember something.
Dr. Kelley (17:18.315)
Bye.
Dr. Kelley (17:25.398)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (17:41.959)
The memory kind of comes up as if for the first time. And then, and then what ayahuasca does is as that memory kind of reconsolidates the panic that you're finally feeling in its full glory is, is dissipated. And so as that, as that memory is reconsolidated, that traumatic memory is reconsolidated in your brain. The love that you're surrounded with, hopefully in that, in that exquisite set and setting of the center you're at.
Hopefully that's what it's like. And also the rainforest is a mother earth is surrounding you too. Cause you're in the Amazon. Those feelings actually start to become associated with that memory. Those, that traumatic memory as it's reconsolidated. And then you're actually able to incorporate that traumatic memory into that larger narrative about yourself. And it's not.
It's not, you're not as panicky. You're, you, those memories are not as charged. You're less, you're less able to be triggered and those terrible memories become more like, um, like nightmares. So maybe you had a nightmare 15 years ago, right? And you can remember that nightmare, but you don't sit and quake in your boots when you think about it. It's like that you could remember it, but it just doesn't have the same charge that it used to. And so that is, um, that I would say is kind of the
Dr. Jeanne (18:58.479)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (19:07.127)
In a nutshell, there's so much more to say, but in a nutshell, those are some of the things that ayahuasca can do for someone with PTSD or complex PTSD, people who have been traumatized.
It's not pleasant always.
Dr. Jeanne (19:21.626)
But you were saying some things in the beginning about it having this effect of kind of taking you almost out of the trauma and helping you experiencing it in a different way, taking away that panic that you're feeling. So is there like a danger of
Dr. Kelley (19:22.651)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (19:36.526)
Yes.
Dr. Jeanne (19:41.474)
some kind of addiction forming because I would think that if you're always in this state of panic and you're always wanting to get out of it and you have now this kind of golden thing that makes you feel that much better, aren't you always going to want to go back to it and do it again and again, or am I misunderstanding?
Greg Wrenn (19:53.987)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (20:01.271)
No, no, this is, this is a wonderful question because I would go to Sarah, you know, once I discovered ayahuasca, I, I did go back to, you know, to these ceremonies and, and very fortuitously, they kind of came to me. I didn't have to go down to, to South America. But I should say right off the bat, because my, you know, there were concerned family members and friends who, who brought up this very question.
Ayahuasca itself is not addictive. So we can look at brain scans of people who are on Ayahuasca, who, you know, who've ingested Ayahuasca and the pleasure center of the brain that would light up for say cocaine or other, other drugs does, that's, that's not the region of the brain that's stimulated. Ayahuasca ceremonies can be so challenging. So, um.
puke filled, right? People are vomiting. You're purging sometimes during Ayahuasca. You know, it's, it really is such a roller coaster of exultation, bliss, but then also, you know, feeling, you know, going to your worst memories, that it's hard to imagine someone becoming like, sort of
Dr. Jeanne (20:59.418)
Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (21:02.63)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (21:12.366)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (21:26.435)
becoming dependent on it. I think some people become dependent on it if they are economically tied to it. Like if someone is serving medicine, there's a way in which they can become dependent on the kind of grandiosity that it can give them. But no, ayahuasca itself is not addictive and it, and it's just hard to, unless you've experienced it, it's really hard to.
Dr. Kelley (21:36.679)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (21:54.731)
to communicate how much humility most people are left with after they go on one of these journeys. It's not something you necessarily wanna, you would never wanna go to a party, let's just say, on this. You would wanna leave right away.
Dr. Kelley (22:16.782)
So I would love to ask a couple nerdy brain science questions that came out of what you were saying. Well, one of them is just an interesting piece of literature that I read about the default mode network that they had done studies on the brain. Because if you look at a scan, it almost looks like a kind of like a T formation in the brain of where the default mode network is. And they had studied Buddhist monks.
Greg Wrenn (22:22.4)
Okay, sure.
Dr. Kelley (22:43.074)
who we would all imagine have mastered the ability to stay out of the default mode network. And to be clear, we can all experience this very easily if you are doing something and you are attending to it and you are focusing, you are likely not in your DMN. But as soon as your brain starts to wander, where it wanders to is when the DMN comes on board.
Dr. Jeanne (22:47.258)
Mm.
Dr. Kelley (23:09.346)
For me, my DMN is a planner. I am a scanner and a planner. It kind of makes me think of Devin Piper, who we had spoken to and had a beautiful conversation about meditation. And she had said that we tend to get into our default modes because it's a survival technique. It's a way for us to see what happened in the past and what could happen in the future. So we're ready all the time.
Dr. Jeanne (23:15.029)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeanne (23:21.212)
Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (23:36.982)
But as I'm understanding you, Greg, if we stay in that too often, you can't engage in everyday life. So that study they had done of Buddhist monks, they could only stay out of their DMN for 12 seconds. So, I think that's a good point.
Greg Wrenn (23:53.391)
Hehehehehe
Dr. Kelley (23:55.233)
12 seconds. That's how, yes. Exactly. Or I should.
Dr. Jeanne (23:56.288)
Wow.
Greg Wrenn (23:56.399)
is the monkey, the monkey mind. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I think, and this is something I would say to people is that, is that, you know, what I, one of the things that ayahuasca, one of the gifts, one of the blessings of ayahuasca, one of the, you know, one of the blessings that have, that has come out of, you know, the real difficulty, the almost the tribulation, you could say, of many of these ceremonies.
is that I'm better able to slip into flow, we'll call it. If you have overactive DMN on one side, maybe on the other end of that continuum would be like flow. I'm much better able to get into flow without the medicine. Right, that's the thing is once you drink the medicine, that's when your real work begins. And so can you train yourself to
Dr. Kelley (24:30.734)
Okay.
Dr. Kelley (24:45.491)
awesome.
Greg Wrenn (24:54.235)
get out of rumination, to get out of, to sort of, to adjourn the shitty committee. Can you learn to do that? And yes, you can. But it might be for 12 seconds or 10 seconds or five seconds, and then you have to do it again. So it's constantly remembering, right? The Pali word, right? The ancient word for mindfulness, from the Buddhist time.
Dr. Kelley (25:12.462)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (25:21.159)
was stati and sati simply means to remember. And so I'm better able to remember to catch myself when my mind is wandering and then I come back. So it's, you know, it's, we don't want anyone to think that we're turning, we're going from Clark Kent or we're going from, from Gremlin to Gizmo, you know.
Dr. Kelley (25:25.858)
Hmm.
Dr. Kelley (25:45.386)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeanne (25:47.011)
Yeah.
Greg Wrenn (25:47.231)
in five seconds flat, you know, Clark Kent to Superman, it's, we're not becoming perfect, we're becoming better able to pilot the ship through at times treacherous waters, the treacherous waters of the mind, which likes to go every which way, doesn't it?
Dr. Kelley (25:52.066)
Hmm.
Dr. Kelley (26:05.934)
That's a beautiful way to put that because I did want to ask you about how do you know that it worked and how do you know that it helped? And it sounds like you just laid that out beautifully.
Dr. Jeanne (26:15.59)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (26:17.059)
Well, I mean, I think another part is that I, my, my compulsive, the compulsive behavior, like the addictions that I had that were, you know, that were having me walk on a suicidal path, those, those are largely gone from my life. And thank, thank the goddess. And also, I mean, in terms of complex PTSD, right? So
Dr. Kelley (26:35.106)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (26:45.299)
So bonding with another person was panicking, was panicky, panic-inducing for me. And it was hard for me to have stable relationships with people. And now I'm married. So, I mean, I had friends who, exes and friends who would say to me, oh, Greg, you're never gonna get married. You're not the marrying type. It's not.
Dr. Kelley (27:00.364)
Wow.
Dr. Jeanne (27:00.884)
Mm.
Dr. Jeanne (27:10.514)
Hahaha
Dr. Kelley (27:11.441)
You're like, watch me.
Greg Wrenn (27:13.923)
watch well, I kind of I believe them. But then yes, you're right. After I worked with the medicine, and I and I and I had I had my I got my, my self worth back. And I got my ability to I got my I found that I found a way through these medicines, and we can talk more about the science around this, to sort of pull myself out of misery and difficulty, right, something I don't ever get
Dr. Kelley (27:16.334)
Thank you.
Greg Wrenn (27:44.319)
much more quickly. And so being able to do that, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm living a much more fulfilling life, but, but I'm still human, you know, and I'm also not special. Lots of people have done this. They just don't necessarily go on a podcast and talk about it or write a book. Um, so, and, and there are people who've done this without, without psychedelics. So, so it's, um, I was just, you know, I had a really, you know, a really difficult, um,
Dr. Kelley (28:03.67)
Hehehe
Greg Wrenn (28:14.071)
Childhood in a lot of ways, I'll just say, my mom abused me until I was almost an adult and I won't go into any details, but I definitely needed to be remothered. My wounds were very deep. And so it took me, it took some drastic measures and it took a lot of time and a lot of work.
Dr. Kelley (28:20.61)
Hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (28:36.843)
I guess that's the flip side, I think, of the question I have, because you've also mentioned that it's not necessarily a fun experience. People are getting physically ill, it's very difficult, and you're explaining that you can access this other part of your brain in another way. For me personally, that has what has held me back on my anxiety journey from trying psychedelics.
gives me anxiety to think about one, facing the fear so brutally, and two, being in a space where I feel I'm not in control of my body and I'm not in control of what I'm thinking and what's happening around me. Just saying that. I'm wondering how did you deal with that? Because
Dr. Kelley (29:08.659)
and
Greg Wrenn (29:23.087)
Am I just talking about it? This is a lot of, yeah.
Dr. Kelley (29:23.476)
Breathe. Take a breath.
Dr. Jeanne (29:32.55)
That's my biggest like stop sign thinking. And I've read about it many times and I've considered it many times. And then I think about this and I'm like, oh no, I don't know. I don't know if I can do that.
Greg Wrenn (29:45.091)
my gosh. I mean, it's that Dr. Jean, that's a that's a really good point you're making. And first off, I want to tell you and say to you and all your listeners is that ayahuasca is not is not for everybody. And and that there are medicines, traditional medicines, traditional plant medicines, and fungi medicines out there and even toad medicine out there that is much easier.
Dr. Kelley (30:00.194)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (30:12.806)
Sorry, did you say toad medicine? Toad med... Ah. Oh. Ha ha ha.
Greg Wrenn (30:14.895)
Toad, yes. Yes. So you don't, you don't, you don't, oh, okay. So, so there, there is, there's a psychedelic called five MEO, called five MEO DMT. And it is, it is, it's derived from the secretions of the Sonoran desert toad. But it can also be, it can also be synthesized in the lab. And that's the more ethical way to go about it. But for example, that trip,
Dr. Kelley (30:15.694)
I love how I just nodded like, yeah, totes. I mean.
Dr. Jeanne (30:22.802)
I'm sorry.
Dr. Jeanne (30:33.586)
Little wow.
Dr. Kelley (30:36.226)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (30:43.567)
while extremely, extremely powerful, lasts 30 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes. So I should just say, you know, they're psilocybin mushrooms. You could start, someone could start with ketamine and then move into psilocybin. I was talking to a woman just yesterday who trained in the Amazon to be a shaman for several years.
Dr. Kelley (30:49.838)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (31:11.647)
And she said something which, which I agree with, which is that ayahuasca in a lot of ways is a medicine of last resort. It's a medicine of last resort. And I was, I was, and so I turned to that medicine of last resort, because I didn't know what else to do, right? By definition, it's a medicine of last resort. But for those of us who were just, you know, at times crippled by our symptoms, but are still
Dr. Kelley (31:20.353)
Hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (31:29.162)
Mm.
Dr. Kelley (31:32.855)
Yeah.
Greg Wrenn (31:40.247)
you know, still functioning and we're not, you know, we're not sort of considering hurting ourselves. You know, there's always psilocybin. There's there's so many other medications out there that you can that you can work with. And you don't have to take the full dose at first. You know, I want to say one more thing, which is that
Dr. Kelley (31:58.058)
and
Greg Wrenn (32:05.799)
I felt so much pain, you know, and as folks read my book, Mother Ship, they will learn that I had freak outs in ceremonies. I did have panic attacks, so to speak, in my journeys. There was one journey where I screamed at the top of my lungs for 20 minutes. This was in the middle of the Amazon.
Dr. Kelley (32:20.128)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (32:31.362)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (32:35.299)
Um, so lots far away from any authorities and you know, like no one was going to lock me up or anything, you know, it was, but, but I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I think I needed, I needed to be in a space where I could just freak out, just freak out. And I think so many of us need a space where we could just have a breakdown and have loving people.
Dr. Jeanne (32:39.559)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (32:41.41)
Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (32:52.142)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (32:52.187)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (33:00.155)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (33:02.499)
chance, right? And they're singing while I'm screaming. What are they doing? They're singing. They're praying in the middle of the jungle monkeys screaming outside. Not screaming but like just like, right trying they're curious. But you know, but people are singing and almost cheering me on as I'm having my breakdown. Those types of experiences are bread and butter.
Dr. Kelley (33:07.666)
Hmm
Dr. Kelley (33:14.583)
Matching your pitch.
Dr. Jeanne (33:16.078)
Heh.
Dr. Kelley (33:25.057)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (33:31.359)
in traditional societies where you have a breakdown, but the community embraces you. And you're almost treated as an honored member of that community to be having a break of sorts. And then you come back and you're surrounded by love and you're transformed. You're not a psychiatric patient anymore. You don't need to be locked up. You're transformed into...
into the into the next stage you've gone from chrysalis to monarch butterfly maybe you know or at least the wings are starting to poke out a little bit and i don't mean to romanticize any of this but i'm just trying to point out to people that if you're afraid to work with some of these medicines first off you don't have to work with ayahuasca secondly maybe you need to freak out i know i did i was so tight so afraid of life and um
Dr. Jeanne (34:08.359)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (34:25.89)
Hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (34:26.558)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (34:31.691)
And it was good to scream, you know, it was good to scream, it was good to, to just have a breakdown and then, and then, and then come back and realize that so many of these concepts that we have in psychiatry, um, maybe, you know, maybe some of them, maybe there's more to them, you know, maybe, maybe a psychotic break, and I know this is a little controversial maybe, but maybe a psychotic break is not always the end of the story, you know, maybe there's also
Dr. Jeanne (34:41.348)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (35:01.451)
Maybe that's that maybe not always, but maybe that psychotic break is a spiritual emergency. And maybe that person, maybe that person doesn't need to be locked up or medicated or whatever. Maybe they, maybe they need to be someplace where they can just let it out. And, and this is, and these are some of the kind of the kind of these radical conclusions that I would never
Dr. Kelley (35:07.927)
Hmm
Dr. Jeanne (35:21.618)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (35:28.939)
have a spouse maybe after I worked with these medicines, but the mind the brain is so mysterious. And yet we have these cultural concepts that are so can be so rigid, you know, diagnostic tools and DSM V, right?
Dr. Kelley (35:38.347)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (35:43.362)
uh the dsm5 yes
Dr. Jeanne (35:44.45)
Five.
Greg Wrenn (35:45.187)
DSM five as you call it, the DSM, you know, and it's like, what you do, those that's useful for insurance companies and for patients to know who they are, to know what's going on with them. But there's also a lot of mystery. And so I want people to receive care, but I also want them to know they can.
Greg Wrenn (36:07.223)
I don't know. I just want people to receive care where they feel called to receive it. You know, and not to not have not to be a stigma around it, you know, go somewhere safe, go somewhere legal. But but don't, you know, just do what you need to do to get better. You know, with Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (36:23.618)
Well, and it sounds like the byproduct of this ceremony and all of these medicines for you was actually a lot of the things that as a trauma therapist, we hope and aim for people to be able to have a breakthrough, the barrier, the ability to feel and scream and shake and move, to do the things that the body needs to do that the spirit needs to do, that the mind needs to do.
Interestingly, when you were saying your CPTSD was keeping you from community, and here you are in community, you also mentioned that ayahuasca might not be the answer for everyone, but let's say a much more vanilla version of this. I've once done a cacao ceremony. Have you done that before?
Dr. Jeanne (36:58.738)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (37:11.696)
Yeah.
Thanks for watching!
Greg Wrenn (37:19.959)
I don't think I have, but I've seen it advertised. What was it like? Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (37:23.69)
I'm mentioning it specifically thinking, well, I'm mentioning it thinking of what Dr. Jean was saying about not wanting to lose control of your body, but still wanting that kind of ceremony environment and being with others and going for the intention of unloading.
It is, so it's a vasodilator. It was a shaman out of Asheville. She's lovely, Bloom, I love you. And she has these gorgeous ceremonies. We all brought something, like a totem, something that was meaningful to us to put into a space. And we drank of the cacao leaf. And it was, I think, from her trips to Peru. So this really beautiful, raw,
Dr. Jeanne (37:52.276)
Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (38:09.81)
very well-sourced cacao. And it kind of, my experience was it kind of increased my intensity of feeling, but, and it wasn't like a caffeine feeling, but it was like, I felt more open to what I was feeling. I definitely cried more than anyone else in that circle. So apparently I needed it.
Dr. Jeanne (38:32.037)
Hahaha.
Dr. Kelley (38:33.514)
So I think for me it was like, and I'm sharing this with listeners who maybe are not ready to go all the way to the route of something like ayahuasca, or you had mentioned ketamine, which you can actually get prescribed in some states. So there's ketamine assisted therapies that can support people who are resistant to SSRIs, which are going to be your Prozacs. There we go. I don't agree with everything he does, but she said, Elon Musk.
Dr. Jeanne (38:54.018)
Elon Musk is a huge proponent of that. Yeah.
hahahaha
Greg Wrenn (39:04.931)
It almost sounds like a cologne.
Dr. Kelley (39:10.305)
But there are different ways, because if we think about it, these medicines that you're talking about, the psychedelics, were actually the ones that were first researched before all these SSRIs started coming out into the market. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (39:24.879)
Oh, wow.
Dr. Kelley (39:26.57)
there was a collection, I think Ram Dass, I can't remember what his name was before he was gifted that name by his teacher. But he and, thank you, thank you. He and a couple other collegiates were studying these and they were actually fired from their jobs and kicked out of some of their agencies because of their research. But they were showing huge promise with these medicines. And then, hmm.
Greg Wrenn (39:34.499)
Roger Albert, I think.
Dr. Jeanne (39:49.572)
Oh.
Dr. Kelley (39:54.466)
Big Pharma stepped in and said, let's go a different route that we can control and we can monetize. So I love that, Greg, you are saying this is not for everyone. We don't all have to muscle through with the most beastly method. But on the other hand, maybe it's about opening up our mindset that it's not just one clinical, westernized approach to the brain, but it can be many.
Dr. Jeanne (40:01.798)
Hmm.
Greg Wrenn (40:10.124)
No way.
Dr. Kelley (40:23.882)
approaches that some of them come from ancient cultures that were doing these things to welcome men back from war before they even integrated back into their societies. They were doing these kind of ceremonies before they even got them back with their families. It's just opening our eyes.
Dr. Jeanne (40:25.304)
Mm.
Dr. Jeanne (40:35.108)
Mm.
Dr. Jeanne (40:41.007)
And then how, so these ceremonies that you're talking about, Amelia, both for you and for you, Greg. So how long does that last then? How long does the ayahuasca, since you've, from the moment you take it or ingest it, like, how long does that feeling go for? It's the same with the coca leaves.
Dr. Kelley (41:02.826)
I don't think so. Cacao is like as fast as you digest it. I don't know. I'll let you go.
Greg Wrenn (41:05.315)
Well, I mean.
Dr. Jeanne (41:06.903)
Instant.
Greg Wrenn (41:12.405)
Well, I think if you look on Wikipedia or officially, a psychotic journey with ayahuasca lasts four to six hours. But it really depends on the set and setting. It really depends on the strength of the medicine. And so, I mean...
Dr. Jeanne (41:23.75)
Wow.
Dr. Kelley (41:24.778)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (41:34.126)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (41:40.511)
And also just who you are and how sensitive you are. So, so I'm quite sensitive. And so, you know, I've had ceremonies that have lasted 12 hours, 10 hour, 10, 12 hours and it's, it's a lot, you know, it's, it really isn't for everyone, it isn't for everybody. It's certainly not something you cook in your garage. It's certainly not something that happens, right? People do that.
Dr. Kelley (41:51.438)
Wow.
Dr. Jeanne (41:51.954)
Wow.
Greg Wrenn (42:08.011)
It's not something you cook in your garage and it's certainly not for people who are bipolar, schizophrenic, have psychotic tendencies, you know, real serious personality disorders. You know, it's there, the warning label on it, if there were a warning label would be very, would be very long. But, but if you're not any of the things I just named,
Dr. Jeanne (42:25.383)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (42:35.091)
you're going to be probably most likely you're going to be much better than you were after you took it after you ingested it. And so but yes, it can last, it can last a long time. It can last a long time. And it can be very somatic, right? Maybe you're not seeing anything. You know, maybe there are no visuals. It is just a kind of psychedelic somatic experience, which is kind of hard to put into words.
Dr. Jeanne (42:40.569)
Mm.
Dr. Kelley (42:54.798)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (43:04.695)
But it's a bit almost like when you're in a really deep, deep meditation and you're, and you're, and you're getting, and you're, and you're receiving body work, you're kind of having a somatic dream as you're moved around on the table. It's a bit, it's, it can be a bit like that too. So it's, it's intense, you know, it is really intense. Um, but the research is just, it's just piling up about the benefits of this medicine and not just for.
Dr. Kelley (43:24.096)
It's good.
Greg Wrenn (43:34.135)
the mind, not just for the brain, for the body. And this is a this is a potential treatment for those who have Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, any kind of neurodegenerative disease. There is I know there are researchers who want to research I don't know how much research has actually been done on it, but how I was to get interacts with the microbiome because, as folks may know, you know, 90.
Dr. Kelley (43:58.978)
Hmm. You're speaking Gene's language.
Dr. Jeanne (43:59.578)
Oh wow.
Dr. Jeanne (44:03.206)
hahahaha
Greg Wrenn (44:03.711)
Jay, okay, so it's about 90% of your body's serotonin is made in the gut. And so isn't it interesting that ayahuasca is going into the gut and those receptors in the gut, your second brain, are interlocking with some of these wonderful chemicals in there. And so what it's doing to the microbiome in the gut, I think it's very unclear.
Dr. Kelley (44:16.014)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (44:32.235)
But it's not bad. It's not, there are some very good things happening, I think. And I will say I am in really, really good health. I'm 44 years old and I'm the healthiest I've ever been. And I haven't worked with the medicine for a while now, but it also sets you on the path to new habits, right? New, healthy, wholesome habits, because you're able to be more mindful if you've worked with it enough and you've practiced enough.
Dr. Kelley (44:33.73)
Hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (44:34.17)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (44:45.191)
Uh-huh.
Dr. Jeanne (44:45.414)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (44:58.958)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (45:01.855)
And you can say no to things that maybe you would have been helpless to say no to in the past. So there's so much to say about it. I can't wait to write another book about it.
Dr. Jeanne (45:06.542)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (45:09.502)
Yeah, I know. And I wonder, because we've talked about the vomiting during this episode, and we've talked about that it can act as an antidepressant, and it affects the biome because of serotonin being predominantly grown there or produced. I wonder if, when I think about someone who is on a surplus of an SSRI, it can cause serotonin shock. I don't wanna freak people out with that term.
Dr. Jeanne (45:11.311)
Yeah. Ha ha ha.
Dr. Kelley (45:36.898)
But I wonder if because it's this expedited process of serotonin production, if that's why the vomiting happens.
Greg Wrenn (45:36.98)
Right, right.
Greg Wrenn (45:46.231)
I don't know. I can't answer that question. I think that yeah, there is definitely fact check. No, I've done a lot of research on this, but I do not know what is, I guess the technical term would be an emetic, E-M-E-T-I-C. I don't know which chemical in the ayahuasca
Dr. Kelley (45:49.11)
I'm gonna go to Google Scholar after this episode.
Dr. Jeanne (45:51.895)
Yeah, we should fact check this fact check.
Dr. Kelley (45:55.294)
Yes, this is me just hypothesizing.
Dr. Kelley (46:10.188)
Mmhmm.
Dr. Kelley (46:14.325)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (46:14.359)
But there is something in there that is making you purge. And when you do purge, many times, not all the time, but many times when you are purging, when you are vomiting into that bucket that's next to your little sleeping pad, you're connecting with what you're letting go of. Like you're vomiting the abuse that you received as a child into the bucket. And the next morning you can hold that bucket up.
Dr. Kelley (46:19.574)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (46:33.679)
Okay.
Dr. Kelley (46:37.252)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (46:38.52)
Mm.
Greg Wrenn (46:42.855)
and you can look at the greenness, the green groatiness of it and say, and say, that is what that person did to me. And it is in the bucket. And now I'm going to go outside and throw it into the rain forest or flush it down the toilet. So there's something very satisfying about the connecting that purging with the actual letting go of, of trauma. It's, it's, um, that in a way is yeah.
Dr. Jeanne (46:44.742)
Yeah!
Dr. Kelley (46:45.114)
Girl!
Dr. Kelley (46:54.919)
Right.
Dr. Kelley (47:00.274)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (47:06.066)
I can see that. I can see that visual.
Dr. Kelley (47:06.866)
Yeah, very cathartic. Hopefully, they keep you hydrated, nourished, well rested. I mean, are all of these like other ways that they prepare you for that?
Greg Wrenn (47:10.271)
It's cathartic, like literally cathartic. Yeah.
Greg Wrenn (47:20.771)
There are so you don't eat, you know, you don't eat for probably 12, at least 12 hours before you begin a journey. So you're not you don't have a full stomach. You do hydrate, you know, before you do hydrate after during and after. And, and those of us who are maybe on SSRIs, I'm not but if you were in an SSRI, they would ask you to taper off of that, so that there isn't
Dr. Kelley (47:48.13)
That's what I was thinking.
Greg Wrenn (47:50.031)
Yeah, interaction. So any you see always want to be super, super upfront about what medications you're on, even herbal supplements that you're on. And they'll tell you, hey, two weeks before the ceremony, you need to you need to cut it, cut it out of your system. So I like to think about, I think of ayahuasca ceremonies is almost like going on. Going into space, like as an astronaut, you would prepare physically and train physically.
Dr. Kelley (47:57.903)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (48:14.994)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (48:18.807)
before you were shot up into space. It's a bit like that, you know?
Dr. Kelley (48:22.198)
Hmm. Wow, that's...
Dr. Jeanne (48:22.574)
Mm-hmm. This was really interesting. I'm so glad we had you on the podcast and I've been asking Amelia questions about this for a long time. So I'm very glad to have been able to ask you all of these things today.
Greg Wrenn (49:43.967)
Amazon Amazonian medicine is the way to go. No, it's just to expand the circle of options, the menu of options for folks. And they can do their they can they can perhaps read my book, they can read How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan. They can even read more about CPTSC by reading Stephanie Foo's What My Bones Know, which is an excellent so you know that one. Excellent book. Wonderful book. So so like there are lots of
Dr. Jeanne (50:00.752)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Kelley (50:04.17)
love her book so much. I love that book. It's beautiful.
Greg Wrenn (50:12.271)
There are lots of books to turn to, there are lots of experts to turn to, there are lots of medicines to turn to. And, and I think that, you know, we are in a mental health crisis. We had a hundred thousand people last year in the United States, um, overdose on opioids. We had 50,000 people kill themselves in the United States. And so we need to offer, we need to expand that menu of options because, um, it gives people hope it gives, it gives them more, more ways to.
Dr. Kelley (50:37.61)
Absolutely.
Dr. Jeanne (50:38.112)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (50:41.603)
to deal with what they're dealing with before they do something that they can't turn back from.
Dr. Kelley (50:47.67)
And so if I could ask you one last practical question, because everyone who is listening is probably not able to jump on a plane and get to the Amazon tomorrow, what would you say are the best resources for people to look for in their country? And I'll say United States because that's where we are located. And what resources could you offer as far as them staying connected to you as well?
Greg Wrenn (50:58.683)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeanne (51:09.85)
Mm-hmm.
Greg Wrenn (51:17.903)
Sure. Well, I would say just to answer both questions at the same time, I would say for resources and to stay in touch with me, you can go to my website, gregren.com. That's G-R-E-G-W-R-E-N-N, two N's,.com. And if you look under mothership resources, they're resources there for if you've had a psychedelic experience and you need to turn to an integration coach.
there are some organizations on there that could connect you with someone. There's even a psychedelic helpline. So if you've had a psychedelic experience or you're actually in a psychedelic journey and you're freaking out, you can call this number and someone will coach you through it. Yeah, and I think that, you know, I think in my book, Mothership, A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis, folks can...
Dr. Kelley (51:55.822)
Hmm.
Dr. Kelley (52:06.21)
Wow, I did not know that.
Greg Wrenn (52:16.591)
can learn about the exact, you know, find out the exact names of the places and people that I have worked with. And, you know, beyond that, I can't really recommend any resources in terms of, you know, where to go. But I would just say it's important to try and do this someplace where it's legal. So I think in Oregon, this is legal. I think in Colorado, it's legal. In certain parts of California, it's legal.
And there are lots of above board kind of practitioners there that you can work with. All the states would do it expect. Yes. I think Maine, maybe, I don't know. Maybe, maybe. So, um, so I think, you know, I think too, and also I should say, you know, there are lots of psychedelic societies across North America, I think even in Europe, and you can go to these meetings and then.
Dr. Kelley (52:49.142)
I'm laughing all the states you would expect for it to be legal in. It's legal. Maine? No, I'm just kidding. Maybe?
Dr. Jeanne (52:57.01)
I'm sorry.
Dr. Jeanne (53:10.966)
Yeah, Spain especially.
Dr. Kelley (53:13.128)
Mmm.
Greg Wrenn (53:13.423)
Spain and connect with other people and learn about, you know, where they, where they might go, where they might turn. But, and folks can also visit my Instagram, which is Greg, the letter J, W-R-E-N-N. You can find me on there and follow what I'm doing and what I'm up to and hopefully get some inspiration for your own, you know, well-being, for your own mental health and for your own psychedelic explorations.
So I feel a lot of hope, you know, I feel a lot of hope that we don't have to, we don't have just one way anymore of, you know, of confronting our demons and confronting our trauma and our panic. We as survivors, we as folks with PTSD or complex PTSD, we have, you know, we have more options. And I'm really glad that, you know, we've had this conversation. It's important. It's really important to give people hope.
Dr. Jeanne (53:57.958)
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jeanne (54:07.794)
conversation.
Dr. Jeanne (54:12.434)
Can you just also tell our audience the name of your book again? And is it available on Amazon? Is it audible? Where can we find it?
Greg Wrenn (54:15.827)
Absolutely. Sure. Yes, it takes it takes place on the in the Amazon and it's available on Amazon. It is I have a cover of it. Copy of it here. Thank you. So this is a nice. Okay, wonderful. Yeah, so this is this is mothership. It came out fairly recently. And it is this evidence based account of how I turned to
Dr. Kelley (54:25.622)
Yay. Oh, it's so beautiful. I have the digital copy disclaimer. So.
Dr. Jeanne (54:28.227)
Nice, yes.
Beautiful.
Greg Wrenn (54:42.775)
coral reefs and ayahuasca to heal from complex PTSD. And also it helped awaken my ecological conscience caring for the earth. So that's a big part of the book too. And they can find it on Amazon or they can find it, you know, their, their library or they can find it. And I should say also the, the audio book is, is about to come out if it's not already out. And so folks can, can listen to it because not everyone has time to sit and write a book.
Dr. Kelley (54:50.498)
with him.
Dr. Kelley (55:04.994)
Exciting.
Dr. Jeanne (55:05.522)
Awesome.
Dr. Kelley (55:09.054)
Is it you? Is it you reading it? Yay, that's awesome. Congratulations on that. Wow. So you're basically best friends now.
Dr. Jeanne (55:10.939)
Hehehe
Greg Wrenn (55:11.563)
And I narrated it, so it was a lot of fun. And Wanda Sykes was in the studio over from me when I was narrating, so it was a lot of fun.
Dr. Jeanne (55:13.994)
Nice!
Dr. Jeanne (55:18.985)
Oh, nice.
Greg Wrenn (55:25.507)
We said nothing to each other, but we were in the same room very briefly, and but we're both drinking coffee at the same time. Total bonding, total bond. No panic. So not, no, no triggers. Oh my gosh. It's so, it's such a pleasure to meet you and, and thank you for having me on this show and thank you to the listeners for listening and thank you for
Dr. Kelley (55:27.066)
Oh, okay.
Dr. Jeanne (55:27.59)
Yeah.
Dr. Jeanne (55:34.202)
I'm sorry.
Dr. Kelley (55:34.806)
Bonded, totally.
Dr. Jeanne (55:41.256)
Thank you so much!
Greg Wrenn (55:52.567)
having this podcast, you know, and offering this to the, to the world as, as people, as people navigate through this, this very difficult life, it's always, it's always hard to be human no matter what we do. And so it's, it's good to, it's good to have guides and, and positive voices out there. So thank you for offering this.
Dr. Kelley (56:03.014)
Absolutely.
Dr. Jeanne (56:05.169)
Yeah.
Dr. Kelley (56:09.146)
Oh gosh. Well, thank you. My goodness. We'll use that as a glowing review. Thank you, Greg. Bye.
Dr. Jeanne (56:11.862)
Thank you! So we'll see you again next time! See you next time! Bye! Thank you so much! That was amazing!
Greg Wrenn (56:17.935)
Okay, so see you next time. See you next time. Okay, bye bye.